


Lust For Life

by Basingstoke



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Curtain Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Music, North London, Sobriety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:05:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke
Summary: https://twitter.com/mcgregor_ewan/status/637666494487379968
"do you think Curt Wild lived happily ever with Arthur after the end scene of VG? No pressure but my happiness depends on it.""Yes they did. They live in North London. They run a recording studio. Sober. Kids. All good."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Philipa_Moss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philipa_Moss/gifts).



A knock at the door wakes Arthur up. He looks up at warm plum walls and ceiling, the colour of the soul. Home. "Are you decent?" Janet asks.

"Best I can say is we're not shagging," Arthur answers. Beside him, Curt giggles into the pillow. 

Janet opens the door. She's in her business gear, neat as a pin, her hair tied up in a bun, her gray suit sharply tailored to her form. Not a little girl. "Pop! What will you say to my mom when he repeats you on the phone? It's bad enough that he has an English accent." 

"I've explained worse things to your mum, bab," Arthur says, grinning. He sits up. He's decent. Jim-jams and all. 

Biscuit wriggles through her legs, bright in a pink shirt and Fair Isle leggings, his frizzy black hair a halo around his head. "Pop!" He pelts across the bedroom and tries to scramble up onto the bed. His twenty-months-old legs aren't long enough, though, so Arthur swings him up. 

"How are we this morning?" Arthur asks. 

"Morning!" Biscuit flings his arms around Arthur's neck and smacks a kiss onto his cheek. 

"He is so cute today, I don't know how I'm going to walk out this door," Janet says. 

"I'll text you every hour," Arthur says. 

Biscuit spies Curt's slitted eyes and transfers his affections to his grandfather. "Daddy!" It's what his mother calls Curt, so it's what he calls Curt. 

He kisses Curt all over his face. "Oh my god," Janet says, both hands over her heart. 

Arthur makes the sacrifice and gets out of bed. "Go on," he says. "He'll still be darling when you get home." 

"But I won't see every single second of it," Janet says. She sighs, and Arthur kisses her temple. 

"We'll be here on the days when he's a sullen demon child as well," he says. 

"Okay. Okay, I'm going to miss the train. Goodbye, baby! Goodbye, daddy!" She waves with both hands.

Curt waves. Biscuit waves too. "Bye-bye!" 

"I can't do it," Janet says, so Arthur shoves her out of the bedroom and closes the door. 

"Go to work!" he yells. 

After a moment, his phone buzzes on the dresser. She's texted him "Thanks." 

Arthur takes his morning pills and Curt plays peek-a-boo with Biscuit. Not there….and there! Biscuit laughs like a drain. Curt is there….then he's not there! Oh no, not there! And then THERE. Biscuit falls over backwards laughing. 

Arthur washes his hands, then gives Curt a translucent red gummy vitamin. Curt nips it from his fingers with his crooked teeth. He twinkles up at Arthur.

Biscuit takes that opportunity to poop. Arthur touches his nose. "Not it."

Curt growls. "Fine. Come on, stinky," he says. 

"Tinky!" Biscuit slides down from the bed and heads out into the hall, presumably toward the nursery, though one could never be sure. He has an adventurous spirit. Curt follows him, one hand holding up his pajama bottoms, snagging his velvet dressing gown from the hook on the wall.

Arthur takes the chance to get dressed, quickly finding jeans, comfortable oxblood Docs, red collared shirt over a Jack Fairy shirt he's very likely had since he was twenty, unless it's Curt's, which is less likely. They're the same size, more or less, so they've given up keeping their clothes separate, but Curt has had a harder time holding onto possessions. He tears his shirts and loses shoes at parties.

Biscuit runs past the bedroom to the stairs. He backs up on his hands and knees and starts carefully inching down. 

After a few minutes of painstaking progress, Curt gives up watching and gets dressed as well. By the time he emerges, his red corduroy trousers too baggy on his arse, pulling a Black Lives Matter sweatshirt over his head, Biscuit is most of the way down the stairs. 

"Would you like some help?" Arthur asks. 

"NO!" Biscuit bumps down one more stair. 

Curt shrugs and sits beside Arthur on the top step. "I didn't have plans. How about you?"

Arthur leans into his shoulder and kisses him, lazily, until he hears Biscuit's little legs take off at the bottom of the stairs. Then he jumps up and follows, Curt close behind.

Arthur makes eggs and toast for breakfast in the sunny yellow kitchen. He takes pictures for Janet as Biscuit feeds Curt toast by careful handfuls, egg pooling over their green plates.

Curt's phone rings. Awfully early for that. Arthur tosses it to him from the charger. "It's Abene!" Curt says, and answers. "Hey! ...No, it's early. Time zones, what the fuck. Eating breakfast with the baby and the man. Yeah?" He listens, with increasing intensity, tapping his gold-painted nails against his lower lip. "Look, you called the wrong person if you want me to tell you not to fuck her." 

Arthur laughs. Curt puts the phone on the table and puts her on speakerphone. "Talk to Arthur, he's the sensible one," Curt says. 

"Found someone lovely?" Arthur calls out. 

"I'm her opening act!" Abene wails. Despite the Spanish name, she has a powerful Scouse accent. "But she invited me back to her room, I mean, _into her room_! There were looks!" 

Arthur leans over the table. "I'm no help either, love. I slept with every member of two different bands before I was eighteen."

Curt waggles his eyebrows at Arthur. "My man and I would never have met if not for free love, kid. What's the real problem?" 

"What happens when it inevitably goes wrong?" 

"Then you throw her out the window and steal her guitar," Curt says. 

Abene chokes out a laugh. "Curt!"

"Write a scorching diss track about her labia minora," Arthur says, letting his Brummie accent swing. 

Abene screams wordlessly. 

"You really phoned the wrong cats," Curt says. He leans over the table and kisses Arthur. 

"And now you're snogging. Right, I'm going to her room. If I get kicked off the tour I'll come live in your attic." 

"Looking forward to it, baby," Curt says. "Have fun." 

She hangs up. "Fun," Biscuit says.

They both look at Biscuit in horror. He looks back at them innocently, eating the last of the toast."God, I'm glad he only knows six words," Curt says. 

"Never tell Janet," Arthur says. "TYou can probably tell Bernice, though." He checks his phone. They have Walter Attah at eleven. 

The recording studio is in the back of the garden, a little shed stuffed with soundproofing. There's still a few hours, so Arthur minds Biscuit and Curt plays with beats. Curt favors found sounds, buckets and animals and road noise. Today it's recordings of the buzz of high-voltage electric lines. Curt listens to various recordings for over an hour, looking hypnotized, and then picks one and adds a drum beat and it's the start of a song. 

Bloody amazing, every time. Arthur can write about a song, market it, make it a hit, but he's never had a lick of creativity, and he loves to watch it. 

"Sick," Walter says when he arrives and hears it. And he starts writing new bars, right there. Arthur would love to watch, but Biscuit needs a new diaper and a run-around, so he herds the boy back into the house. 

Biscuit tries to piss in his face. Arthur barely catches him with the diaper. "Cheeky!" he says. 

Biscuit giggles and kicks his legs. "Teeky!" The sense of humor of an infant doesn't bear thinking about. 

It's cold out, but not too cold for a little boy who desperately needs to get the tickle out of his legs. Arthur wraps him up well in his little red hat and scarf and mittens and takes another dozen pictures to text to Janet as Biscuit stamps around the brown grass and sticks of shrubbery. There's a hedge against the garden wall that Biscuit likes to wiggle into; Arthur lets him, until he gets stuck and wails for help. 

And Arthur can't get him out. Biscuit has wedged himself behind the trunk of the shrub, so Arthur can't just drag him out, and Arthur can't get him to sit down and crawl under the branches. Biscuit cries more and more hysterically until Arthur texts _SOS_ to Curt and Curt comes running outside with Walter. 

Curt immediately rolls onto his back under the hedge. "Hey, look at the sky," he says. 

Biscuit's wails choke off into sobs. He sits down and looks up with Curt. 

"It's silver," Curt says. 

Biscuit sniffles."Tilver?"

"It's not gray, it's shiny from the sun. Like. Dreams," Curt says, his voice hazy. He gets like that when he's creating. 

"Deems?" Biscuit says. 

"Yeah," Curt says, his voice trailing off. "The sky reflects the sun, and the dream reflects the mind."

"Deems!" Biscuit points at the sky. 

Arthur exhales. "Would you like some lunch?" he asks. 

"Yes!" Biscuit wriggles out of the hedge on his hands and knees. 

Curt holds up his hands and smiles at Arthur. "My saviour," Arthur says, and pulls him upright. His back twinges. 

"What's your name, little man?" Walter asks. Biscuit, still wet with tears, grabs Arthur's legs. "Oh. Sorry," Walter says. 

Arthur picks up Biscuit and cuddles him between their chests. "Malcolm," Curt says. "He's my grandson. You didn't know about him?"

Walter shrugs. "I know you from 'Sunshine.' Sorry, mate, if you're famous I missed it."

Curt raises his hand for a high-five. "You made my fucking day," he says, emphasizing the point with a chest-bump. Walter grins.

"Come in and let's have lunch," Arthur says. 

Biscuit wants his wraps off as soon as they're inside. Arthur pulls together ratatouille and bread from the freezer. Curt tugs Biscuit's red knit hat down over his own head. "So back in 1995--Christ, were you even born yet?" Arthur asks.

Walter shakes his head. "'96."

A mere child. Arthur puts the bread in the toaster oven as the ratatouille microwaves. "Right, so 1995, the World Wide Web was brand new, and I was working for Rolling Stone as a reporter. I got an email address and one of the first emails I got was from Bernice Jones. Do you know her?"

Walter shakes his head. 

"Betcha do," Curt says.

Arthur pulls out his phone and calls up "Waste Land," of Nokia ad fame. "Waste not. WANT NOT," Bernice yells out. Bloody everyone knows this song. Nans know this song. Toddlers know this song. Biscuit loves this song, and he applauds his grandma's pipes wildly. 

"Oh! Shit!" Walter says, before clapping his hand over his mouth and looking at Biscuit. Biscuit isn't paying attention, busy clinging to the fridge handle and dancing. He twerks well for someone who's been walking less than a year. Arthur lets the song play out for him. 

"Best backup vocalist of the 70s and 80s," Arthur says. "She was in that documentary last year. They interviewed Curt for it." 

"Bernice was fucking amazing," Curt says.

"I think that's what you said to the interviewers as well." Arthur rubs garlic on the toasted bread and drizzles it with olive oil. "So in '95 I was a bit salty about Curt. We met for the first time in '74, then got together and had two good years in '84 and '85, and '86 he left me for a stripper in Las Vegas."

"Still sorry about that. Being famous isn't good for me," Curt says. 

"I know." Arthur serves lunch. He sits beside Curt, presses their shoulders together. "Then he came back, and I took him back, and he left me again, two or three times…"

"I think you know exactly how many times, mate," Walter says. His mouth curls up in a saucy little smile. 

"Oi. Anyway, I knew Bernice from the scene, and she knew I knew Curt. She asked me to look him up because she was pretty sure Curt was the father of her little daughter, and she wanted to do a DNA test and sue him for child maintenance."

"Not sorry about that," Curt says. He holds his garlic bread at knee level so Biscuit can gnaw it between dance moves. Biscuit is very into toast at the moment. 

"Nor should you be. Janet is a treasure. But Curt was off his head with cocaine--"

"Because I gave you my lucky charm," Curt says.

"I do not believe in lucky charms!" Arthur says. He'll be damned if he lets this argument go, no matter how old it is. 

"We saw a starship, baby--"

"I was on peyote--"

"Same hallucination!"

"Starships aren't real!"

"Same. Hallucination. Meaning not a hallucination."

"He's got a point, mate, if you see the same thing, it's not a hallucination," Walter says.

"You are not going to convince me that we saw a real spaceship on a sodding roof in 1974 when he was shagging me while high on peyote," Arthur says, pointing his spoon at Walter. 

"Oh," Walter says. "Well, maybe? I believe in aliens." 

"See?" Curt says. 

"The sodding spaceship was a sodding metaphor for my sexual sodding awakening," Arthur says. "And I told you I was seeing it, so therefore you saw it."

"Blah blah suggestible blah. I wrote a song about it," Curt says. 

"That doesn't mean you saw it." 

Curt leans over and kisses him, long and hard. "I saw it," Curt says, his voice low. Sexy. Intimate. Arthur gives up. 

Walter, polite young man that he is, has his head down in his bowl. Arthur clears his throat. "So," Arthur says. "Bernice dunned him for maintenance, but he kept forgetting to pay. She kept asking me for his current address, what he was up to, because I had more connections in New York. She was in Los Angeles doing cartoon voice work. So I kept running into Curt and getting involved with his life, until finally we hooked up for good and moved back to London. Janet came over for college; she got into Oxford and trained in international law."

"She gets the brain from her mom," Curt says. "My family is dumb as dirt."

"Then she came up pregnant with Biscuit, right before she graduated. "

"Bik," Biscuit says, pointing to himself. 

"My little English biscuit," Curt says, ruffling Biscuit's fluffy hair. Biscuit holds onto his hand and bounces. 

"So, Janet moved in with us and we look after him."

"That's nice," Walter says. "I was an accident, but my dad works at Sainsbury's. Mum got twenty-five pounds a month from him. I guess she should have shagged a pop idol." 

"Many have," Arthur says. 

"Yeah," Curt sighs. "Might have some more out there. I wasn't wrapping it up in the seventies. Or eighties. Or nineties, shit. I don't know how--" He cut off. 

Curt can't comprehend how he is HIV-negative and Arthur isn't. They've had this conversation too. Curt picks up his bowl and starts eating. 

"Don't know what?" Walter asks. 

"Huh?" Curt says. 

"You started to say…" Walter shrugs and drops it. "Is Janet Black?" 

"Yes," Arthur says. 

"Is she single?" Walter tempers it with a sly smile. 

"You're not good enough for her," Curt says. 

"Cold!" Walter laughs. "Holding out for Prince Harry?" 

"We've done our best to turn her gay, but it hasn't taken," Arthur says. "How's the recording going?" 

"Filthy. It's going to be massive." 

Biscuit climbs onto Curt's chair, grabs Curt's bowl and tries to tip the soup onto his head. Curt offers him the spoon and Biscuit tips that down his shirt instead. "Well, he's your blood," Arthur says. "You never met a substance you didn't dump over your head." Curt flips him off. Walter laughs. 

After lunch, Curt and Walter return to the studio and Arthur tries to put Biscuit down for a nap. Biscuit doesn't want to go, even though his eye-rubbing shows how tired he is. Arthur pulls the blackout curtains, rubs his back, places his stuffed wolf in his arms, but Biscuit continues to mutter around his fist and kick his legs. 

So Arthur is reduced to singing. "Will you stay in our lovers' story? If you stay you won't be sorry, 'cause we believe in you..." Biscuit smiles at him. "Soon you'll grow, so take a chance, with a couple of kooks hung up on romancing…"

Biscuit closes his eyes as Arthur sings. Victory. "And if you ever have to go to school, remember how they messed up this old fool. Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads, 'cause I'm not much cop at punching other people's dads...And if the homework brings you down, then we'll throw it on the fire and take the car downtown..." His voice is raspy, and the words are ridiculous, but the baby likes it, so he'd sing it in front of the Queen.

Biscuit is out cold, breathing evenly. Arthur snaps a photograph and takes the baby monitor back to the recording shed. 

The song in progress is, in fact, filthy good. Curt has even remembered to turn on the recorder. He's fifty-fifty when it comes to remembering practical things. 

His creative mind, though, is clear and bright as diamond. He's made the beat more complex, with more depth and resonance, but the simple electrical buzz lets Walter's bars shine in the forefront. 

"English words, English dream, God save the queen," Walter concludes, and pushes back in the wheely chair.He gives Curt two thumbs up. Curt returns the gesture. He looks up at Arthur and beams. 

Arthur adores him. 

They cut the final that afternoon and Walter goes home to plan his release schedule. "Baby's still asleep," Curt says, slipping his hands into Arthur's back pockets. "Wanna?" 

Arthur kisses him, sinking his fingers into Curt's wild white hair. His eyes are enormous and brilliant, no longer clouded by drugs. The lines in his face show his personality and his struggles. Lovely, lovely man. 

Biscuit cries out upstairs. Curt groans, pushing his hips against Arthur's. 

"Duty calls, gramps," Arthur says. 

"It's a good thing he's cute."

"He is bloody cute, though. Like his granddad." Arthur kisses him one more time and lets him go. 

Curt takes the stairs two at a time. "I'm coming, baby!" he calls out. Arthur sits in the bay window and texts Janet to see if she'll be home in time for dinner. She replies that she thinks so.

Arthur takes a picture of Curt coming down the stairs holding Biscuit and texts it to her. She replies with heart eyes emojis. 

"Little man threw his wolf out of the crib," Curt says. "He was awake, just playing."

"Woof," Biscuit says, hugging his wolf to his chest. He squirms once and Curt sets him down; he runs to the tabla they keep in the corner and starts drumming, one-handed, off-tempo, with the wolf held firmly under his chin. 

"Do you think we should get a piano? Good for little fingers," Arthur says. "We could move the rocking chair up to his room and put it just there." He gestures to the big velvet-cushioned rocking chair, where Janet and Biscuit curl up together in the evening. Curt's favorite guitar is hanging over the chair, flanked by a glockenspiel and a marimba. They keep maracas, bullroarers, cymbals, seed rattles, jingle bells, and the like on the shelves by the fireplace, and various drums in the corner on the pile of floor cushions. Certainly a piano would fit the theme of the room. 

"I have an electric piano. I think."

"Probably in storage."

"I don't want to move the chair. Everything good is right here. Music and fire and his mom actually loves him," Curt says. Arthur kisses his cheek. 

"By the stairs," Arthur says. "We can move the table where we put the mail and put the electric piano there instead."

Curt nods. "Yeah."

"Want to go to the storage room tomorrow? Could be fun."

"Nah. I don't like looking backward. Forward is better."

Biscuit is having a grand time with the tabla. He's dropped his wolf and is beating it with both hands. Curt joins him, pulling up a floor cushion, picking a seed rattle from Ghana off the shelf. 

Arthur almost doesn't hear the knock at the door. He answers, finding the mail carrier. 

"Special delivery letter for Curt Wild," she says. 

"I'll sign," he says. 

"Um--I'm a really big fan," she says. "I love his work with Abene Thomas." 

"With Abene? You're a proper fan. Curt!" 

"What?" Curt pops up from the cushion, nimble as a child. 

"She likes your work with Abene!" 

"Shit!" Curt crashes into Arthur's back, hooking an arm over his shoulder, and grins at her. "Abene is my girl!" 

"I adore 'Sunshine,'" she says. "I absolutely love it. I listen to it all the time while I'm walking my rounds. I love the, um, the wood--"

"The marimba," Arthur says. 

"Yes! I love it."

Curt is bouncing on his toes. "I had a blast on that album. You want a picture? What's your name?" 

"Laura. Please," she says. 

"Come on in. That's my grandson Malcolm," Curt says. 

Laura steps in and waves politely to the baby. Biscuit puts his fist in his mouth and looks at her. 

They keep an old Polaroid camera on the mail table. "Say cheese," Arthur says, and Curt hugs Laura around the shoulders. Arthur snaps a picture. 

"There you are," Arthur says. He gives her the photo. 

"Abene is my soul sister. We're going to cut a soundtrack soon," Curt says. 

"For real!" 

"Yeah. There's a documentary about conversion therapy--what's it called--" 

"They're calling it Sizzled Straight, but I'm not sure if that will stick," Arthur says.

"Right. But they tried that on me, you know. Electroshock. Didn't work. Still bi. Abene's parents sent her to mental hospital. Still a lesbian. So we're in the doc and doing the music."

"Fuck yes," Laura says. She covers her mouth and looks at Biscuit. "Sorry." 

"Eh, fuck, the baby's going to swear like a sailor," Curt says. 

"He really is," Arthur sighs. He looks at Biscuit. 

Biscuit takes the wolf out of his mouth. "Twear," he says. 

They all laugh, uproariously, even Laura, bending over themselves. "Oh Jesus," Curt says, staggering to the rocking chair. He swings Biscuit up into his lap. "I love you," he says, kissing Biscuit over and over until he squeals. 

Arthur wipes his eyes. "There was a letter?" he says. 

"Oh! Lord, I'm still at work. Yes, special delivery," Laura says, pulling a letter from her sack. "I need a signature just here."

Arthur signs. "Thank you," he says. "You've been a joy." 

"This was brilliant," she says. She waves to Biscuit. "Bye!" 

Biscuit waves back. Curt beams. 

Arthur closes the door behind Laura and looks at the letter. "It's from Malcolm Brady." From the Flaming Creatures. Arthur and the Flaming Creatures had been thick as thieves, back in the day. The band was still around, putting out an album every few years, playing with symphonies and the like.

Curt grimaces. He doesn't look surprised.

"What? You were expecting this?" 

"He keeps emailing," Curt says. 

"About what?" Arthur opens the letter. Reads it. "He wants you to do a concert." 

"Yeah." 

"So tell him no." 

"I want to say yes," Curt says. 

"Then say yes." 

Curt rubs his forehead. Arthur crosses to him and sits on the arm of the chair. "What?"

"I've never performed sober. I don't know. If I can do it." 

"Never?" 

"Drunk in the 60s, H in the 70s, coke in the 80s, X in the 90s." Curt shakes his head. 

Arthur catches his head in both hands. "You were a child in the 60s." 

"Started drinking at fourteen," Curt says. 

Arthur strokes his hair. Biscuit offers his stuffed wolf. 

Curt takes the wolf and presses it to his mouth. "I should do it," he says. 

"Not if it compromises your sobriety." They don't even keep beer in the house. They don't go to Amsterdam. They know how to stay happy and well. 

"No," Curt says. "You do the things that scare you. And you especially do the things that scare you the most." 

"Oh, my love," Arthur says. He slides into the chair with Curt, rocking them both, feeling Curt's heart hammer in his thin chest. The green jewel on the stuffed wolf's collar digs into his forearm.

When Janet comes home, she finds Biscuit pounding on the tabla and Curt and Arthur wedged in the rocking chair. "Give us a hand," Arthur says. 

She pulls him upright. Curt slides down onto a floor cushion. "Bad day?" Janet asks. 

"Weird day. I'll get dinner, you two play with Biscuit." 

He needs time anyway. Curt, never sober. Shit. He looks at the cupboards; they have noodles; no, he's leaned on bread for breakfast and lunch. Damn.

Potatoes. Jacket potatoes with...he starts four potatoes in the microwave. Jacket potatoes with prosciutto and parmesan, and brussels sprouts alongside, he decides, and he takes a bag of sprouts from the freezer. 

Curt has never performed sober. 

At the same time, he has to be mentally present as he cooks. Clean-up is an ordeal if he cuts himself. So he inhales, exhales, centers himself before he starts chopping prosciutto.

They have quite a good therapist. He should make an appointment for himself and Curt. How has Curt never told him this? It's massive. Arthur is his partner, in everything. They have a child and a grandchild and a house and a business. He should have known this already. 

The microwave beeps and he checks the potatoes. They're soft. He takes them out and lavishes prosciutto over the top, scoops sprouts beside, and starts grating parmesan. 

And by the time he's finished dinner, he has a plan. Therapist. Discussion. They may do the concert or may not. "Dinner!" he calls. He sets the plates out on the kitchen table. 

The others come in, Janet carrying Biscuit in one hand and her phone in the other. "Mom called," she says. "Look, Pop cooks for us every night. There's always something green." 

Bernice beams at them from California. "Arthur! I know you're looking after my babies."

"Of course, darling," Arthur says. "Are you coming out for Christmas?" 

"That's the plan. And you know, honey, I'm an old lady, plans change for ME. I'll be there." 

Arthur grins. "Text me your flight. We'll pick you up." He wouldn't have any other co-parent. 

"You know it. Okay, you have a good dinner, baby. Mwah! Mwah!" Bernice throws extravagant kisses to Biscuit. 

It is a good dinner. Janet tells them about her day at the law firm. She's working on housing Syrian refugees, and it's a lot of negotiation with landlords and government agencies. "It's so slow," she concludes.

"Mm," Arthur says. "Curt had a good day. Walter went home with a solid track."

"Yeah? I like him, he's smart on Twitter." 

Arthur smiles over the table. "He asked if you were single." 

"Pop!" She swats him. "Quit!" 

"What? You could do worse." 

"I'm an independent woman and I don't need no man. Apart from my daddies," Janet says. 

After dinner, Janet has some more work, so Curt puts on music--this week it's Mongolian metal--and dances with Biscuit as Janet reads housing contracts in the rocking chair. Curt is quite right. The rocking chair has to be in the living room. Arthur takes off his boots, stretches out on the sofa, and checks his email. 

Malcolm, asking if they got his letter. "Considering, get back to you next week," Arthur answers. 

Interview request from a student making a film about gender expression in rock music. Maybe. 

Charity request. No. 

Another charity request. NO. They give to LGBT charities, Black charities, women's shelters, not the sodding Salvation Army. They can go insert themselves into themselves. He's heard enough from his bloody brother about God's plan for his cock.

Electric bill. That's auto-paid.

Studio inquiries...he buzzes through those, sorting them into various folders. 

Kanye West? Really? "Kanye wants to use your face on shirts in his summer line," Arthur tells Curt. 

"Sure," Curt says. He lifts Biscuit up to the ceiling.

Arthur shrugs and answers sure, send over the contracts. Curt can put his face where he likes. 

"Tell him send me a shirt," Janet says. "I want a Kanye shirt of my daddy. That sounds baller." 

Arthur adds that to the email. 

Next email, musical instrument sales, and the next as well, and he deletes them. No spam exactly but he's not in the market right now. Then children's clothing. "Primary is having a sale," he tells Janet. "I think Biscuit is about to grow." 

"Yeah, he always gets fat then gets tall," she agrees. 

"I'll get him some things in the next size up." He marks that email for later. 

Next. 

Next is--

Arthur stands up and changes the music. 

"It's a god-awful small affair, to the girl with the mousy hair, " Brian Slade sings. "But her mummy is yelling no, and her daddy has told her to go. But her friend is nowhere to be seen, now she walks through her sunken dream…" 

Curt looks at his face, then sits on the sofa with him. 

"Invite for a tribute. One year since his death, this January," Arthur says. 

Curt clenches his fists and turns away. 

They both loved him in their own ways: Arthur from afar, Curt as close as anyone could get. Tommy Stone admitted he was Brian Slade in the late 90s, long after anyone cared, just as he was sinking into irrelevance; then came the documentary about the subject, and the movie portraying Brian as a sensitive artist and "Jim Savage" as his abusive love, which nearly knocked Curt off the wagon from the insult; that put Brian back in the cultural conversation, and the reality show in 2001 kept him there; American Idol, a second reality show and a third, a messy divorce, an app, and finally, he spent all last year publicly dying of cancer. 

Brian and Curt never spoke after their breakup. Not once. But he's always been part of their lives. Janet watches them silently.

"Sailors fighting in the dance hall, oh man! Look at those cavemen go. It's the freakiest show...take a look at the lawman beating up the wrong guy. Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know he's in the best selling show. Is there life on Mars?" Brian Slade sings. 

"Yeah," Curt says. "Whatever they want. Let's finish him off." 

The organizers want him to perform and to be interviewed for a documentary. But they have a good therapist. It will be all right. "Okay," Arthur says. 

Curt gets up and changes the track to "The Bewlay Brothers," sung by the dear, long-departed Jack Fairy. "In our wings that bark, flashing teeth of brass, standing tall in the dark, oh, and we were gone!" Curt sings along. He bends backwards, throwing shapes at the ceiling. Biscuit accompanies on tabla. 

"Lay me place and bake me pie, I'm starving for me gravy, leave my shoes and door unlocked, I might just slip away," Curt sings in a horrible Cockney accent. It makes Arthur remember that he hates this song nearly as much as the one Curt wrote about the bloody sex spaceship. 

Curt straightens up. "Man, fuck this. Brian is yesterday. Do they want me to sing old shit?" 

Arthur checks. "Yeah. Something from your album together." 

"Fine. Tell them I'll do a new arrangement and Abene will sing. I'll play my keytar. They want retro, they can have retro." 

Arthur grins. "Wrong decade for the keytar, love."

"Retro is retro. It's all yesterday. Abene is today. Tell them that. She's my protege or some shit. If they want me, they take her." 

Janet applauds. Arthur joins in. 

Janet takes Biscuit and puts him to bed shortly after. It takes a while to get him down, but it's their special time. He can hear her singing, faintly. 

He takes his evening pills and Curt takes his daily PrEP. Arthur's pills always make him nauseous, no matter what he does, but he slowly drinks a glass of water and rides it out. 

Curt watches the faces he makes and grimaces. "Run us a bath?" Arthur says. "With that minty stuff. The smell helps." He has anti-nausea meds, but they put him to sleep, so much that he's walking around like a zombie half the next day. He only takes them if he's in real danger of vomiting up his medicine; he doesn't fancy digging the pills out of the mess to re-swallow. 

The mint does help. He breathes deeply, pressing his hand to his stomach, feeling the medicine go down, through his stomach, into his blood, beating up the retrovirus that wants to kill him and his family; the virus that took half his friends. 

He looks in the mirror, fogging up from the hot bathwater. He draws a heart with his fingers over his face. Love yourself. 

He strips off and fondles Curt's arse as he's bent over the tub. Curt stretches out his spine and rolls his arse in Arthur's hands. "Got a present for you if you undo my belt." 

"I think I know what it is." 

"Did you peek? Cheater." 

"You get me the same thing every day, darling." He slips open Curt's belt and finds a lovely, stiff knob inside his jeans. "Which isn't to say I don't appreciate it." 

He slides to his knees--still not too old for that--and sucks Curt with great appreciation and entirely too much tongue. Curt still loves a mess, spit running down his balls and noisy lip smacks above the sound of the water. "You are the fucking best," Curt says, panting, propped against the wall. 

Arthur grins and wipes come off his cheek. He flicks it onto Curt's belly and Curt bangs his head against the tile. 

The tub is full enough, now, and the air is sultry with heat, and Arthur is feeling better after a stomach-settling dose of jism, so they get in the water facing opposite directions, Arthur's bum in Curt's lap, Curt's knees along his sides, and Curt squeezes silicone lube onto his fingers. 

"So remind me who the other band was," Curt says. 

"What?" Arthur spreads his arms along the cool edge of the bathtub and his knees around the warm sides of his man. Little minty bubbles burst along his thighs.

"You said you fucked two bands before you were eighteen. I know one was the Flaming Creatures." 

"Mm," Arthur says, he eyes on Curt's hand. 

"So what was the other?" 

"You don't remember?" 

"Don't tease," Curt says. 

" _You_ don't tease," Arthur retorts. He slides his ankle onto Curt's shoulder, pokes his cheek with his toe. 

Curt grins. "Come on. You know I have memory issues. Don't be mean." 

"Admit the spaceship is a metaphor, then." 

Curt turns his cheek into Arthur's foot. "The spaceship was real."

"I'm going to bed," Arthur says, without moving. 

Curt rolls his eyes. His hand dips below the water, finally, and sneaks up Arthur's arse. Arthur sighs and sinks into his grasp. 

Curt's touch is just nice, before it's even sexy, but the man knows what he's about. He strokes Arthur from the inside, index and middle finger together, until he has Arthur shuddering in his hands. "So who was it?" Curt purrs. 

Arthur bites his lip. Lights dance behind his eyes. "Laser Pop," he says. 

"Laser Pop?" 

Arthur clings to the tub as Curt changes angles. "Fuck...oh, fuck. Harley's first band. With Linda."

"Linda? And Sarah, right, and Cooper, and Dav, and Thom. Two of those are girls," Curt says. 

"Well, I had to be sure, didn't I?" He tips his head back, his chest heaving out of the water as Curt curls his fingers wickedly. 

"Heartbreaker. You were so fucking cute back then…" Curt kneels up, making Arthur gasp, and kisses him hard. "Blushing." 

Arthur feels his cheeks prickle with heat at the suggestion. 

"Did they bend you over?" Curt asks. "The girls? I know Sarah, I know what she does with a cupcake boy." Curt twists his fingers, and caresses Arthur's thigh, and bites Arthur's lip, and Arthur is shaking through an orgasm, coming against warm water and hot skin.

He sinks down into the water, after, looking at Curt. Curt rubs his knees ruefully. 

"Cupcake boy," Arthur says. "I knew I'd told you about Sarah. Nobody would say such a thing but her." 

"My memory isn't so good." 

"You liar," Arthur says, but he's grinning, and Curt is grinning back. 

"I prefer now to yesterday," Curt says. Arthur can't really argue with that. 

end.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Arthur sings is Kooks, [which David Bowie wrote for his baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN3Q_Yr8ZD0), and it's everything.


End file.
